Azazel stared at the book in Elowen's hands like it was a coiled serpent, not just dangerous but treacherous, the kind of thing that pretended to sleep until it struck. His gaze didn't flicker, didn't blink, as though he feared it might come alive if he looked away. The firelight caught the edges of its cracked leather binding, illuminating faded runes that shimmered faintly with a color that wasn't color, like an oil slick or bruised moonlight.
Then, he inhaled, long and deep, a breath that seemed to come from someplace buried, as if it were pulled from the bottom of a well inside him. The sound of it filled the space between them, and when he exhaled, it was with the weight of surrender, resignation, or perhaps reverence. He leaned back in his chair, and the ancient wood groaned beneath him, the creak less like furniture and more like an old door reluctantly opening.
"That book," he said slowly, each syllable drawn out like a spell being cast, "is older than the forest. Older than the kingdom that once stood where these trees now rot. Older than memory, if memory had bones."
Elowen blinked, the heaviness of his words sliding off her like rain off oiled cloth. "Okay, dramatic much."
He ignored her, his eyes never leaving the book. "It's a Seeker's Book. It reveals only what the bearer is ready to see. If you try to force it, it shuts down. Like a locked mind behind a closed eye. It is alive, in its way. And it does not take kindly to impatience."
She frowned, brow furrowed, and glanced down again at the stubborn page that hadn't changed in hours. Just one sentence, plain and merciless: 'Find nine keys to save your father.'
"So what," she asked, voice edged with frustration, "do I wait until it decides I'm interesting enough to show me the next clue?"
Azazel's expression didn't change. His face was carved from something too old for amusement. "You focus. You quiet your mind until it's still enough for the book to reflect what it needs to show. Right now, you're noise. Screaming chaos in a human body. Static wrapped in flesh."
"Oh, thanks," she muttered dryly. "That's definitely how I like to be described."
He leaned forward, the fire painting shadows across the jagged map of scars that crossed his arms and throat. "You want answers? Then find stillness first. True stillness. Not silence....just stillness." His voice dropped to a murmur. "Tonight, the moon is full. You'll go to the clearing east of here, alone. When the moon reaches its peak, you'll perform the Stillness Rite."
Elowen narrowed her eyes, suspicion threading through her ribs. "What's the Stillness Rite?"
Azazel tilted his head, and for a moment, his expression shifted, subtle, sharp. Like someone remembering a pain they never quite buried. "A trick," he said, almost gently. "One the forest taught me before it stopped being kind."
Something in the way he said it made her spine go cold, as though a long finger had just brushed the back of her neck. But she nodded, swallowing the unease.
"Fine. I'll do it."
The clearing felt like a trap the moment she stepped into it, like a place that watched more than it welcomed. Silver light spilled across the mossy ground in thick, shimmering pools, not soft like moonlight should be, but clinical like the sterile brightness of a surgeon's table. The trees ringed the clearing like sentinels, their branches laced overhead into dark, thorned cathedral arches. Their silence wasn't peaceful. It was the silence of things holding their breath. No wind. No birdsong. Just the soft, syncopated drumming of her own heartbeat and the weight of thoughts too loud to bear.
She moved slowly to the center, the book clutched against her chest. Moonlight slid down her shoulders like cold paint, drawing pale lines across her skin, etching her in silver. She remembered Azazel's words, more like instructions from a ritual than advice:
"Stand barefoot in the clearing. Close your eyes. Don't try to silence your mind. That never works. Focus on a single word, not a thought or a wish. Just a word. Repeat it. Anchor yourself with it. Let everything else fall away."
"What kind of word?" she'd asked.
He'd smiled at that, sharp and cruel, a smile with too many teeth and no warmth. "One you don't understand yet. That's the point."
Now, Elowen removed her boots, each movement deliberate. The moss under her bare feet was cold and slick, strangely soft, with a give that made her think of skin stretched over bone. Not soil. Not grass. Something older.
She closed her eyes....and breathed....one word. It came without effort, uninvited and inevitable: Still.
She repeated it, slowly at first. Then with rhythm. A chant in her mind. Still. Still. Still. Still.
But the chaos didn't stop. Her thoughts were wild animals, caged and rabid. Memories slammed into her like waves: her father's voice, broken and desperate, screaming her name in the dark; the thunderous crash of something huge chasing her through the woods; a girl she could almost name, with blood on her hands, laughing as she leapt from a tower; a sobbing boy clutching a broken mirror, his reflection warped with sorrow; a child with blank eyes whispering "please" before dissolving into smoke.
It all flooded her. Fear. Panic. Screaming. Running....always running.
She opened her eyes. And the world had changed.
She stood at the bottom of a vast pit, and the air here was wrong, thin and echoing, like it had forgotten how to carry sound. This place wasn't natural. It had been made. Dug. The walls rose high above her, carved from seamless stone, etched with symbols that shifted the longer she looked, languages not meant for human eyes, twisting themselves into new meanings and undoing them just as quickly. Far above, a thin window of silver shimmered: the moon, distant and faint, as if glimpsed through water or smoke.
Around her were people. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. All frozen in place. Some were featureless, blank shadows of humanity. Others wore her face, contorted with terror. Every one of them was running. Running in place. Locked in that single moment of motion. Feet scraping the ground without moving forward. Arms pumping. Chests heaving. But their mouths opened in silent screams. Their eyes wild. They were stuck in the performance of escape, in the pure reflex of fear, but there was nowhere to go.
She spun, heart pounding, and saw herself over and over again. Different versions. Different moments. One bleeding from the stomach. Another with fire in her hair. One dragging a child. One dragging a corpse. Elowen clapped her hands over her ears, shut her eyes tight against the nightmare, and screamed the word, not in her mind this time, but with everything in her:
"STILL!"
It echoed like a bell tolling in a cathedral of bone. And for one breathless, crystalline moment, the runners stopped. She opened her eyes. Back in the clearing. The moon still overhead, but the sky felt thinner. Her body shook. Sweat drenched her shirt, her hair plastered to her face, and her legs gave out beneath her. She dropped to her knees, hands trembling.
The book burned against her skin. She opened it without thinking. The words were different now. Three sentences stood etched in clean, firm script:
You touched the edge of silence.
You are not ready to see the path.
But you are ready to choose the first direction.
Below the words, faint and ghostlike, appeared a compass rose, ornate, inked in silver. The needle spun, slow and deliberate. Then it stopped.
EAST.
Back at the hut, Azazel didn't look up as the door creaked open behind him. But his lips curved as he heard her footsteps. "Still alive, then," he said, the words heavy with knowing.
Elowen stood in the doorway, breath ragged, hair wild, eyes burning with something too big for words. She raised the book with both hands, showing him the new page. "It gave me a direction."
He turned his head slightly, eyes narrowing with something that might have been respect, or maybe warning. "Then you're further than most ever get."